8^TH INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON INTERCULTURAL, COGNITIVE AND SOCIAL PRAGMATICS

(EPICS VIII)

 “COMMUNICATION, CULTURE AND COGNITION”

School of Philology

UNIVERSITY OF SEVILLE

 2-4 MAY 2018

The research group “Intercultural Pragmatic Studies (English-Spanish): Pragmatic and Discourse Issues” is pleased to announce the upcoming Eighth International Symposium on Intercultural, Cognitive and Social Pragmatics (EPICS VIII, after the Spanish acronym for “Encuentros de Pragmática Intercultural, Cognitiva y Social”). EPICS VIII will be held on 2^nd-4^th May 2018, at the School of Philology of the University of Seville (Spain).

Previous EPICS conferences have addressed issues pertaining to intercultural pragmatics, (im)politeness in interpersonal communication, interlanguage pragmatics, recent developments in relevance theory, language aggression and conflict, pragmatics in mediated communication or instruction of pragmatics through new technologies. EPICS VIII will be dedicated to analysing and discussing the role played by socio-cultural and cognitive factors in communication and social interaction. This is why the conference theme will be “Communication, culture and cognition”.

EPICS VIII seeks to provide a forum for practitioners of pragmatics and other related disciplines to present on their latest research from social, cognitive or intercultural perspectives, as well as to suggest new avenues for research and share experiences. EPICS VIII also wishes to create awareness among graduate students of the interest in pragmatics within the broad field of linguistics.

We are very honoured that the following scholars have agreed to be EPICS VIII keynote speakers:

–         Penelope Brown, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.

–         Maria Sifianou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

–         Dan Sperber, Institut Jean Nicod, CNRS & Central European University.

We welcome original papers, written in English, on any of the subjects that come within the list of conference topics below or on any other related topic. Presentations can be made in any of the following types:

A) Individual oral presentations

These must be 20 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion.

B) Themed panels

These must contain a number of thematically-related papers, each of which must be 20 minutes in length, followed by 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Proposals for panels should also include a chair.

C) Posters

Participants presenting a poster must obey the following norms:

• Posters should be no larger than 118,9 x 84,1 cm (A0).
• They may be printed in colour or in black and white.
• Poster presenters must bring a printed copy of their poster with them to the conference. Note that there will not be printing facilities at the conference venue. Presenters will also be responsible for displaying the poster and turning it down at the time and in the place designated by the conference organisers.

2. Topics

EPICS VIII focuses on the influence of culture, context and/or cognition on both production and comprehension of discourse. Accordingly, topics for presentations may include, but are not exclusively limited to, the following:

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors affecting production and comprehension of language/discourse in face-to-face or mediated (by telephone, computer, etc.) communication in a variety of genres (included social networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and settings (classroom, parliaments, service encounters, etc.)

– Culture, context and pragmatic processes in comprehension

– Culture, context and morphology, lexicon, syntax and/or prosody

– Culture, context and figures of speech (irony, metaphor, hyperbole, etc.)

– Culture, context and types of discourse (professional, academic, political, religious, humorous, etc.)

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors determining the expression and processing of emotions in communication

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors affecting the projection and understanding of identity

– Believing, culture and epistemic vigilance

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors intervening in (im)politeness and relational work in a diverse settings and communication modes

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors in language aggression and conflict

– Online vs. offline communication and discourse

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors in face-to-face or mediated service encounters

– (Socio)Cultural and cognitive factors in evaluations of service encounters and customer satisfaction

– Cultural and cognitive factors affecting translation and interpreting

– Experimental testing

Proposals must be sent as email attachment to the following email address: epics@upo.es

Please make sure that your submission includes the following information:

A) Oral presentations and posters

– A Word/pdf file containing an anonymised one-page abstract no longer than 350 words. Please name this file “Abstract_Surname”.

– A Word/pdf file, named “Data_Surname”, containing the following information:

1. Author’s/Authors’ name(s) and affiliation(s)
2. Title of paper
3. Topic(s) addressed (from among those in the list of topics above)
4. Audio-visual equipment required (computer, video, etc.)
5. E-mail address(es)
6. Postal address(es)

B) Themed panels

In addition to the two files containing the abstract and information for each presentation, panel proposals must also include a one-page abstract no longer than 350 words for the whole panel.

4. Dates  

Deadline for receipt of abstracts is 1^st December 2017. Proposals will be peer-reviewed and notification of acceptance will be sent by 15^th January 2018. The organising committee will plan the programme as soon as it has selected the successful abstracts, so please indicate on the abstracts if you cannot present on any day of the conference (2^nd-4^th May), as it is very difficult to reschedule papers after the programme has been planned.

5. Conference Fees

The fees are for the full conference (2^nd-4^th May) and include the conference pack, coffee breaks and lunches, but not the conference dinner. Instructions to pay the registration fee will be given upon notification of acceptance.

Information about the official conference website will also be included in notifications of acceptance. In the meantime, feel free to follow EPICS VIII on Facebook in order to receive relevant updates. Click here: EPICS VIII Facebook Page.

We hope you will circulate this Call for Papers to your colleagues and others in your professional network, and to any discussion groups to which you may subscribe. For more information, feel free to contact us. We hope to welcome you to Seville in May 2018.

Thank you for your interest.

Organising Committee

Manuel Padilla Cruz (mpadillacruz@us.es)

Reyes Gómez Morón (rgommor@upo.es)

Lucía  Fernández Amaya (lferama@upo.es)

María de la O Hernández López (mariolahl@upo.es)

Daniel Calvo Carmona (dcalvo@us.es)

Bethany Aull (bethanyaull@gmail.com)

Scientific committee

Patricia Bou Franch, University of Valencia

Katarzyna Bromberek-Dyzman, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan

Billy Clark, Middlesex University

María Victoria Escandell Vidal, National Distance Education University

Pilar Garcés-Conejos Blitvich, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Elly Ifantidou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Francisco Ivorra Martínez, University of Alicante

Didier Maillat, University of Fribourg

Sergio Maruenda Bataller, University of Valencia

Jacques Moeschler, University of Geneva

Steve Oswald, University of Fribourg

Agnieszka Piskorska, University of Warsaw

María Elena Placencia, Birbeck College

Leonor Ruiz Gurillo, University of Alicante

Louis de Saussure, University of Neuchâtel

Marina Terkourafi, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Larissa Timofeeva Timofeev, University of Alicante

Francisco Yus Ramos, University of Alicante

Yi Zhang, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University

Information: http://www.congreso.us.es/epicsviii/